Touring eBike for Crete

[fudoka]

We're looking to buy eBikes in Crete for a bit of local touring and commuting in and out of the nearest town. There's not a lot of choice available in Crete but we've found a Cube dealer in Heraklion and I'm looking at their touring ranges of the Hybrid and Kathmandu.
The basic difference is the drive unit, the Hybrid has the Bosch Active Plus delivering 50Nm and the Kathmandu has the Bosch Performance CX delivering 70Nm
The hills in Crete can be pretty fierce (I reckon a couple getting in/out of the village are nigh on 35% in parts) so maybe we'll need to go for the 70Nm Kathmandu range - any advice would be appreciated.

BTW I'm retired and the wife is getting near retirement and we're fairly experienced cyclists and have ridden around bits of Crete on standard tourers but age is now starting to make the hills a little too much for us unassisted.

 

[Trevormonty]

Gearing is also important. With Plus go for 10 or 11spd with 42t or 46t low gear on cassette. The CX drive would tackle most hills with standard 9spd 11-34t cassette but best go for 10spd 42t. NB CX is hard on drivetrains, with 10spd parts bit cheaper than 11spd.

If riding on rough roads consider HT MTB, they have fatter tyres. When run at low pressures give very comfortble ride. Air forks are also good option for rough roads, all high end Cubes have them, as bonus you get lower gearing and better brakes.

Try standardise on batteries so you can swap them between bikes. This allows both riders to share a spare 3rd battery for 50% more range.

 

[daveboy]

We hired these in Majorca and they were great.

http://olivetrailmallorca.com/bikes/

 

[fudoka]

Thanks for the info. I don't know what level of customisation is available in terms of the gearing at the point of purchase, I'll have to investigate, but I'll bear your comments in mind.
We're not looking to go off road per se but some of the 'official' roads are more like tracks and I think a tourer configuration should be Ok, after all I've taken a Dawes Galaxy over some pretty rough ground and there's nothing in the rule book that says you can't get off and push

 

[row]

Go for the CX if you have the opportunity to recharge the bat every day/few days.

 

[fudoka]

Go for the CX if you have the opportunity to recharge the bat every day/few days.

We won't be doing anything more than day-long runs. The after-effects of the lower anterior resection I had 3 years back for bowel cancer mean I can't really go out on multi-day tours these days.

 

[darui]

i also going to visit crete